


Dance

by etherealApostate



Series: Gravity Fails [8]
Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: F/F, M/M, Road Trip, dive bar fortune teller funtimes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-26
Updated: 2017-07-26
Packaged: 2018-12-07 04:59:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11616375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/etherealApostate/pseuds/etherealApostate
Summary: A few days after the storm that marooned Wendy, Pacifica, Dipper, and Bill at the shack.No serious warnings for this one. Guns, mild violence, general creepiness. thats abt it.





	Dance

**Author's Note:**

> It is my authorial guarantee that not one word here posted was written while sober. Or posted while sober. You get the goat. 
> 
> \--
> 
>  
> 
> When it’s late at night and your mind reels with forgotten lines
> 
> And you bite your cheek to taste your blood,
> 
> Then suddenly your mouth is Thermopylae,
> 
> Your blood is Lacedaemonian.
> 
> So you think of soldiers’ entwined battle-eve,
> 
> A soft sealing of flesh,
> 
> Intercrural, between your teeth,
> 
> Before they rush forth.
> 
> You are legion.

 

 

“C’mon,” Pacifica said, pulling tight on her seatbelt. Wendy interrupted her gaze, which had been bent towards the front of the Mystery Shack, and nodded, tugging the door of the Cadillac shut and buckling her own seatbelt.

 

“Bill!” Pacifica turned her attention to the back. She cleared her throat, dry with next-day-sobriety. “Seatbelt!” 

 

Bill shrugged. “I mean, if you  _ really _ want to impair my spellcasting ability….” 

Dipper snorted, then coughed roughly. Pacifica narrowed her eyes. The damage on his neck seemed to have increased in the past couple of days. Her eyes drifted to Bill…. 

 

“Bill,” Dipper said firmly, “We both know you can’t do  _ shit _ with temperature spells.” Pacifica kept an eye in the rearview mirror, watching Dipper smugly fasten Bill’s seatbelt as she shifted the car into gear. “Let me do the work, Pacs.”

 

Pacifica nodded tersely, and Dipper pressed the switch to roll down his back window. It obeyed haltingly, the remnants of iced-over snow crunching beneath the mechanics. 

 

“ _ Calefac _ ,” Dipper muttered, brushing his hand over the windowsill, and the descent of the glass eased as it was warmed. By the time Pacifica had removed the parking brake, Dipper was leaning out the window, and the running background of Dipper’s incantations started to slowly melt the snow that had been blocking the driveway ahead of them. 

 

“How far is it anyway?” 

 

“About two hours,” Pacifica replied, easing forward and back gently on the gas pedal as she carried the four of them down the driveway. “Not counting gas stops. So like two and a half hours.” 

 

Bill sighed in disgust. 

 

\---

 

The trees rolled by. Each one hung iced, and the specific glimmer of each one was lost to Wendy’s vision as the Cadillac cruised at exactly 70 mph down the highway. Warm rubber ate cold concrete, and Wendy idly turned up the heat on the front-seat temperature controls. She gazed out the window, lost in the cool whiteness of the sheathed brown forest. 

 

“Pit stop,” Pacifica announced; the words came sharply to Wendy’s ears as the car veered off into the next ice-rimmed exit, and slowed into the Shell station across the way.

 

The car stopped, and Wendy opened her door, feeling her shoes press into the grungy mixture of snow and dirt beneath them as she stepped out. The air felt sharp in her lungs. 

 

“Red Bull,” she muttered to herself. She took a backwards glance at Pacifica, who was fiddling with her card at the gas pump. “You want anything?” Wendy called.

 

Pacifica looked up quickly. “Nah, thanks, I’m good,” she said. Wendy shrugged, and through the hangover-haze of her mind she found her gaze lingering on Pacifica’s now-turned back. 

 

“C’mon.” A rough voice, way too close to Wendy’s ear, snapped her out of her daze, and she found Bill’s grip around her upper arm, pulling her towards the gas station. “I’m about ready for some caffeine, whaddayasay?”

 

Wendy shook her head and started walking towards the station’s barred-glass doors. She heard Dipper’s narrowed-eyes-tone behind her, telling Bill, “Coffee. No energy drinks. And you have to promise to behave.” She saw their reflected images for a moment in the glass before her, and registered the tense distance between Bill and Dipper’s shoulders. 

 

Whatever. Not her problem. 

 

Soon Wendy was nestled again in the now-faded warmth of the car’s leather seats. Without thinking, she offered her freshly-cracked drink to Pacifica. 

 

“Nah. Thanks,” Pacifica said again. She rubbed one eye, starting up the car. “I don’t really do caffeine. Upsets my stomach.” 

 

“I’ll take some.” Bill, leaning forward, was again  _ too fucking close _ to Wendy’s ear. She considered giving him a smack, but then turned around and looked him dead in the eye.

 

“ _ Back off. _ ” 

 

Bill slumped back into his seat without another word, but Wendy could feel his gaze lingering at the back of her skull.  _ Fucking creepy.  _

 

The car backed out of the parking lot, and all four were again lost in the inertia of their seated movement. 

 

In the back seat,  Dipper’s gaze was averted to look slightly out the window. 

 

_ This is how it goes, _ he thought. His bones felt the ache of a forgotten altruism. Her sweaters were starting to lose the smell of her these days. 

 

\--

 

The car rolled past a dirt-streaked sign: “Defiance, Oregon city limits.” The weak-tea sunshine had managed to raise the temperature by a degree or two, but far too little to disturb the settled snow on the roadsides. The speed limit dropped, then dropped again, and houses began to roll by. Most were one-story buildings rendered in approximate uniformity by the snow. Then a post office, a city hall, a school passed them by; and finally, Pacifica braked gently into a side street. 

 

As the car shuddered into park, Dipper frowned slightly at the seedy bar flanking his door.  _ The Cuckold Moose _ . He’d never been to this specific bar, but he didn’t need to have been. It still brought back bad, hazy memories of the days just after Point Zero (as he called it in his mind). 

 

Suddenly, Bill was pulling open Dipper’s door, bowing slightly and giving a knowingly courteous grin as Dipper stood and stepped onto the curb. He felt dazed somehow. 

 

“She’s on the second floor,” Pacifica said. Dipper watched her words shudder into steam and dissipate in the air. 

 

_ Oh no. _ The not-hallucinations were coming back, weren’t they…? 

 

“Something the matter?” Dipper felt Bill’s sharp grip take his hand. 

 

Dipper shook his head. Bill tutted softly, and dug his nails further into Dipper’s hand. Something about the pain woke Dipper a bit, and he managed to follow his three friends into the bar. 

  
  


At one p.m., the bar had just opened, and four figures walked in. Lou was giving the bar its first wipe-down of the day as she scanned their faces. One of the girls seemed to linger by a table near the door, wanting to sit there, on the edge of the empty room, but followed reluctantly as the yellow-haired boy pulled the brown-haired one up to the bar proper, and folded his limbs onto one of the stools. 

 

They were all about Lou’s age. Her short brown hair swayed against her shoulders as she rolled her head, cracking her neck, and abandoned the rag by the sink.

 

“How’re we doing today?” She asked in a dry tone. 

 

_ “Great _ ,” the yellow-haired man said. One of his eyes was closed and sunken. Creepy. The others, now settled on adjacent stools, remained silent. The red-haired girl shrugged. 

 

“What can I get for you?” 

 

“Actually,” the blonde girl broke in, sitting a little taller (shoulders back, ribs pressed in, ballet posture), “We were hoping to speak to Mister Quince. Is he in?” 

 

Lou snorted. Great. Tourists. “He doesn’t take visitors before five.” At least these ones didn’t have a camera crew attached. 

 

“Are you sure?” The blonde leaned in, her eyes widening pitifully. “It’s really kind of an emergency. And we’re willing to offer compensation….”

 

Lou shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. Head back around five.” Something clinked on the wood of the bar, and she looked over to the one-eyed boy to see a pistol resting on the bar, pointed casually in her direction, and a twitching smirk on the boy’s face. 

 

“Reconsider,” he said. 

 

Lou’s brow furrowed, more for show than anything. This wasn’t going to be much of a hassle. She leaned slowly as if to rest her elbows on the bar edge, and with one quick motion she knocked the gun from the boy’s hand and used her other arm to send a right hook into his temple. He careened into the young brown-haired man next to him, grabbing into his shoulders for support and falling halfway off the stool. 

 

Lou stepped from behind the bar and picked up the piece, giving it a look over before unloading it and stowing it in her apron. 

 

“Safety wasn’t even off,” she commented, to no one in particular, as the one-eyed boy climbed back into his stool, and the blonde girl looked stunned. 

 

\--

 

Bill was feeling something new again. He could taste all his muscles, and they were all lukewarm-rotten, like spoiled fish -- what was this, again? 

 

Dipper would call it humiliation, probably. 

 

It’s so strange, Bill thought for the thousandth time, when you can feel your suffering trickle down into wobbly, taut networks of nerves. He gritted his teeth, and brought his right hand up without thinking about it, rubbing lightly at the subtle, puckered scar on his face. Curse it. 

 

He could feel Dipper working up to say something, as the bartender stood before them, popping her gum laconically and staring. 

 

Dipper was going to try to give a  _ nice explanation _ . Problem was, Bill considered, he didn’t reckon this lady to be deserving of that information…. 

 

Bill slipped a cigarette from behind his ear and into the thin fold of his mouth. Just as the bartender was reaching for a “no smoking” placard, probably about to smack him with it, Bill simply flicked his fingers. 

 

A single blue flame shot up, kissed the tip of the cigarette for a second, and then sparked into oblivion. Bill watched in satisfaction as the bartender’s brow furrowed, and her jaw dropped, but then Bill’s good eye went hazy, and it felt like some sort of acidic irritant was lodged under the lid, and blinking didn’t help -- Bill clamped his lips down on the cigarette, and used his left hand to thumb into his eye, which was now twitching uncontrollably. 

 

Bill’s jaw trembled as the four of them watched in silence. He could feel their eyes, but he wasn’t going to capitulate -- he sneered a little, remembering how he would once have run to Dipper at the smallest scrape or bruise, and despite it all his eye continued twitching and throbbing in an uncanny orgasm of pain. 

 

In a few seconds, the pain died away. Bill released the breath he had been holding (right into the bartender’s face, he hoped) and tentatively opened his eye. Through remnant tears, he saw the faces of the other four -- expressions ranging from intrigued to disgusted to unamused. 

 

“We’ve got some tricks up our sleeves,” Bill said simply, and coughed, and pulled the cigarette from his mouth. He tapped off the ash onto the bar and stood up. “We want a conversation. But trouble is a good second-place prize. Got it?” 

 

The bartender was pinching her nose-bridge in her thumb and forefinger. She shrugged, gave an annoyed grunt, and turned to exit the bar. “I’ll talk to him.” 

 

“And so will we,” Bill said as she disappeared through an inconspicuous wooden door. 

 

Silence, for a moment.

 

“ _ Bill. _ For god’s sake.” Dipper’s voice came like a worn sigh held back for too long. “We could have handled it just fine without being a nuisance, or pulling a gun, or stupid magic parlor tricks--” 

 

“You think that’s a fucking  _ trick _ ?” Bill said sharply. “You--” then he stopped himself. 

 

How could he expect Dipper to understand what he’d gone through to relearn even the slightest control over the lovely blue flames that he had once mastered reflexively? 

 

How could he expect Dipper to understand the burning and reworking and violating of his fingertips with this twisted, debilitated third-dimension version of the feared Apogetic Flames? 

 

How could he expect Dipper to ever give him any control, any agency in their ventures unless he  _ took it _ ?

 

Instead, Bill brought his hands together and began gently cracking each knuckle at a time. 

 

“Forget it,” he muttered.

 

They were alone in the bar. 

 

Wendy, eyes fixed on the door, rose. She walked in the door’s direction. She grabbed a chair (limbs moving loosely under the plaid). She dragged the chair. Scraping sounds echoed on the dark, uniform stone floor. She wedged the back of the chair under the door’s handle, the perfect height. Her mind pulled her back, as if she should glance at Pacifica, as if she should get some kind of approval, but instead she stepped to the side, and her hand moved up of its own accord. She pulled the chain to the “open” sign.

 

It blinked spasmodically, and turned off. 

 

The door to the upstairs rooms opened. 

  
  


“Quince is ready,” the bartender said. She held the door open, and Wendy noticed a string of drool glinting at the side of her mouth. The bartender raised an arm, stiff and doll-like, and pointed to Bill. 

 

“Go,” she said. 

 

\--

 

Bill rose. His mouth felt wet, salivatory. He rose from the barstool, and slipped behind the bar, grabbing an indiscriminate bottle....

 

\--

 

Inside the stairway, the air was humid and there were no lights. Bill waited for his eyes to adjust, impatient, and he unscrewed the cap of the vodka bottle in his left hand. Bill knew by now that he shouldn’t care enough to smell or read or taste what he was drinking -- he clamped his lips around the bottle and threw it back, gulping once, twice, three times before he stemmed the flow and slipped the glass opening from between his lips. He waited a moment. The burn in his throat fixed his mind. Time to go.

 

This Quince boy could control people. Bill knew that much; he still needed to know the conditions of their controlling. Maybe it was based on a desmenes of power: anyone who entered into Quince’s proximity could be controlled a while. Maybe it relied on a chant or a poison (oral, fumous, who cared), maybe it was a time-based control. 

 

Bill leaned against the rough brick wall to his right. He sketched a symbol onto his temple with his free hand. That one, that one might help…. He took another sip of the vodka, and gagged a little. Less than he had on Dipper’s cock in their first back-alley tryst. Felt vaguely proud of himself for that.

 

Worst-case scenario, a drunk mind was the one hardest for a fortune-player to control. Alcohol kills brain matter -- in this case, infinitesimally undoes the circuits of obedience that a fortune-player tries to build. And the drunk mind of a demon-shucked human…. Bill didn’t know. He turned and put his foot on the first step, levering himself upward. 

 

Poor bartender, he thought. His mental voice always seemed a little less callous when he was drunk, and it continued. 

 

Poor bartender. The ones running the bar are always sober. 

  
  



End file.
